durante a viagem que fiz pela grécia, há uns anos atrás, um livro apenas me acompanhou. no percurso nocturno de ferry entre o pireu e hania, na ilha de creta, o sono não vinha ter comigo mas, por muito que tentasse concentrar-me na leitura, os ruídos das pessoas e dos animais que por ali andavam, à  mistura com a artificialidade dos popular shows naqueles canais de televisão inacreditáveis que agora também se encontram por cá, teimavam em desviar-me a atenção. e ainda bem que o conseguiam.

admiro-lhe o uso objectivo e quase impessoal da língua inglesa. senti-me, durante toda a leitura, transportada para aqueles labirintos, esquecida entre o pó e o desprezo.


what is resumed in the word alexandria? in a flash my mind's eye shows me a thousand dust-tormented streets. flies and beggars own it today - and those who enjoy an intermediate existence between either.
five races, five languages, a dozen creeds: five fleets turning through their greasy reflections behind the harbour bar. but there are more than five sexes and only demotic greek seems to distinguish among them. the sexual provender which lies to hand is staggering in its variety and profusion. you would never mistake it for a happy place. the symbolic lovers of the hellenic world are replaced here by something different, something subtly androgynous, inverted upon itself. the orient cannot rejoice in the sweet anarchy of the body - for it has outstripped the body. i remember nessim once saying - i think he was quoting - that alexandria was the great winepress of love; those who emerged from it were the sick men, the solitaries, the prophets - i mean all who have been deeply wounded in their sex.

lawrence durrell, the alexandria quartet (london, faber & faber)